Transmission on a 96 500S

[Ken Griffith]

New person to the forum, so I hope I'm asking the right kinds of questions.

I have a 96 S500 with 68K miles on it. I'm the third owner. The second owner had the Tranny replaced under warranty at 40K(yes that's right). I bought it with 60K on it.

Guess what? I am having transmission problems. I need to point the mechanics in the right direction.

When I am traveling at speed, then stop quickly(i.e. toll booth), the transmission hasn't downshifted, so I''m stuck. I have to manually put it in park, wait some time(20 seconds), then put it back in drive. Even then, it always doesn't get down to first and I have to take off in second.

Any ideas?

Secondly, when I am travelling around town at low speeds, periodically the car won't shift out of first. Again, I have to play around with the manual shifting until I can get it to behave.

Question 1. What might be wrong.
Question 2. Can I still get some help under the warranty(original was 4 years 50K, so I am outside that).